I use a very fine abrasive (in England called wet 'n dry) that is used for car paintwork. Then I finish off with metal polish wadding called Duraglit. I'm sure you can find it in Dk. Check with Lars at DYK. Reckon to spend about 4 Euros.

I buy my own photographic kit. Diving equipment manufacturers and diving services suppliers get even-handed treatment from me whether they choose to advertise in the publications I write for or not. All the equipment I get on loan is returned as soon as it is finished with.Did you know you can now get Diver Mag as an iPad/Android app?

Interests:Stereo/3D Underwaterphoto/video-graphy, Marinelife and archaeology, diving and building cameraequipment.

Posted 11 September 2006 - 11:19 AM

I use a very fine abrasive (in England called wet 'n dry) that is used for car paintwork. Then I finish off with metal polish wadding called Duraglit. I'm sure you can find it in Dk. Check with Lars at DYK. Reckon to spend about 4 Euros.

Hi John!

Thank you for the info!

I googled "Duraglite" and found it to be the same like "Brasso" what is a wellknown product for polishing kobber and silver in DK!

I know Lars and will check with him for the details and the experience he has! :-)

Just found some Brasso/Duraglit at home in a drawer where I keep the shoe polish.

I must say I was suspicious at this suggestion, so I searched round the house for some acrylic to test it out on - rather than my dome port. I selected one of my BSoUP runner up trophies made of some nice flat acrylic and set to work with a lump of wadding out of the tin. The smell of solvent and the tin warnings to keep it off my hands did not feel right.

After washing it off with water things looked very good indeed. If I look very closely at the acrylic I can just see some barely noticable abrasive marks that were not there before. However they were only just noticable under the right light.

I conclude that this suggestion seems quite good. All I need now is to scratch my dome port!

I've used the micromesh on a dome. It's worth noting that only the 1st coarsest mesh removes the scratch. The rest of the meshes remove the scratches left by the previous mesh, each mesh only goes so deep.

It's not a sandpaper, it's a fine mesh, the residue you've ground off comes through the mesh without clogging the mesh like normal sandpaper.

I screwed up a few times and had to go back to coarser meshes and start over. I did it in about 30 minutes on an 8" dome, bet I could do it in 20. I'm sure Udo was slowed down by drying and photographing. it's a lot of steps, but it's not a lot of elbow grease, it's not rocket science. The way it goes step by step, many fine steps, it's easy. The 2 step liquids may take more elbow grease to do the same job, I'm not sure.

The final liquid is also an anti-static paste, it helps the dome shed any dust and particles that might be left after the process. I think it helped and was more than toothpaste, just my opinion.

it's very well possible thta it's not sandpaper but something else, to me it only appeared sandpaper.There are three liquids in the kit included: A Detergent, an abrassive and an anti static. The abbrasive liquid is probably less rough then toothpaste, which also works fine for cleaning copper and silver (like brasso etc. etc.) I'm sure supercleaner for your car is also something similar. But none of these products will easily remove deep scratches that can be felt with your fingernail.But anyway, the micromesh acrylic restoral kit works great and i justed wanted to show you people that it's safe to use it. The largest part of this 1.5 hours of polishing was mainly for removing the deep scratch.I ordered the kit via CIBO in Belgium, their web- or emailaddress is linked on the official micromesh webpage.

Interests:Diving, diving, diving, marine life, critters, rare animals, new species, mountain biking, Indonesia in general, San Francisco, music and a growing interest in art of all kinds!

Posted 06 January 2007 - 03:17 AM

As an ex high presicion engineer I had to work to very high grade finishes on some products that were just as smooth and clear as glass. I'm fairly sure the same method of using fine papers, then using brasso will work just the same on glass done ports as they would acrylic, all you need is a little more elbow grease.

Actually sometimes you don't need to go through all those different paper grades, though it does make the job much quicker. I would often just clog one of the papers up using a fine oil like baby oil, I found this works better than water!

Just joined Wet Pixel today and the first post I come across gave me some info I really needed. My Sea and Sea port has some very small scratches in it, but I didn't want to have to send it to the dealer. After reading the post and replies I feel confident that I can handle it with the info and products recommended there.
Thanks to all of you and Wet Pixel
Bill

If you are in a country which do not have a Micro-Surface rep-office or office. You could contact the following person to order the items. I have done as the service is great... Now it just sitting down to polish the dome....

Has anybody tried this on the inside of the dome port? I have an acryllic dome port that has some small circular scratches on teh inside surface due to a zoom ring becoming dislodged during a dive (?!).

Has anybody tried this on the inside of the dome port? I have an acryllic dome port that has some small circular scratches on teh inside surface due to a zoom ring becoming dislodged during a dive (?!).

Yes, I have and it's impossible to get close to the edges of the Dome port. I damaged my dome by trying to fit it without the extention ring after changing to a 12-24mm Lens. What happens is that the repair scratch area get larger each time you change the micro mesh. You have your hand half inside the dome and use your fingers to hold the mesh on the foam pad provided with the kit, whilst trying to keep even pressure on the pad. Unfortunately, the pad is flat and against the double inside curve of the port, only the edges of the mesh are in contact with the dome. I also tried to remove the dome from the port backing and failed - ended up buying a replacement port from Aquatica. Unless you can remove the dome from the backing plate your going to have a nightmare of a job. Also another point to consider is, if you only polish a small area you will change the optical properties of the dome and end up with localised distortion when looking through the port. This is a fact I have learnt from polishing aircraft canopies. Good luck.

Has anybody tried this on the inside of the dome port? I have an acryllic dome port that has some small circular scratches on teh inside surface due to a zoom ring becoming dislodged during a dive (?!).

I had the same problem as you and D200digitaldiver (scratches from a zoom ring being dislodged AND scratches from trying a lens that was too big for the port!)

the scratches were not a problem until I started shooting in clear, sunny, shallow water.

so I decided to use the mesh kit on the inside of the dome port. the scratches weren't deep, so I didn't start with the coarsest paper.

I never tried to removing my dome port from the backing. I did not use the foam pad, I used my fingers directly on the micro-mesh strips. It would not have been possible with the foam pad. I spent extra time with each micro mesh in the hard-to-reach areas of the inside of the port. it was hard on my fingers! overall the job seems to be a sucess, my images appear to be fine now. the very outer edges of the inside of the dome port don't look perfect, but I haven't noticed anything in any of my photos.

take you time and I think in the end you will be at least as well off as you were before, probably better off. good luck!

May not be a big issue, but it came to mind:
Any thoughts on how repeated scratch-removal via abrasive polishing might possibly affect the depth integrity of the dome? It would seem that for every micrometer of plastic you remove, the dome would be weaker at depth - even if only by tiny fractions at a time....?

I've been shooting through some real doozies of dings & scratches, due mainly to rough shore entries/exits, and I think it's about time I looked into the solutions noted here.....

You are talking about very very small differences in thickness. If you had a scratch there, the material at that point is already compromised and structurally, its weaker with the scratch than with the surrounding material removed because the scratch causes stress concentrations there. In any even you are talking about such small differences even with repeated scratch removal.

Its hard for me to believe that anyone has had a housing fail because a domeport imploded because of pressure. Unless it was shattered against something. There has got to be so much conservatism on the structure of a housing. Housings leak because of seals and controls not structural failure.

I had the same problem as you and D200digitaldiver (scratches from a zoom ring being dislodged AND scratches from trying a lens that was too big for the port!)

the scratches were not a problem until I started shooting in clear, sunny, shallow water.

so I decided to use the mesh kit on the inside of the dome port. the scratches weren't deep, so I didn't start with the coarsest paper.

I never tried to removing my dome port from the backing. I did not use the foam pad, I used my fingers directly on the micro-mesh strips. It would not have been possible with the foam pad. I spent extra time with each micro mesh in the hard-to-reach areas of the inside of the port. it was hard on my fingers! overall the job seems to be a sucess, my images appear to be fine now. the very outer edges of the inside of the dome port don't look perfect, but I haven't noticed anything in any of my photos.

take you time and I think in the end you will be at least as well off as you were before, probably better off. good luck!

scott

Same deal with using the pad. What I found out is if you work (slowly and meticulously) about 3/4 inch from edge and work it perpindicular to the edge and than do the vertical for the center it came out better. I ended up starting with the 3600 and working to the finest worked for me. At least my wife is happy I'm not spending more money on domes.

Just tried the Micro Mesh "for the giggles" this weekend fully expecting to have to puchase another dome port regarless of the "fabulousness" of teh product as I had some pretty serious (easy to feel with fingernails and certainly very easy to see) scratches. I used the Micros Mesh acryllic restoral kit and went thru all the grades. It ttok me 3 hours, tho I am sure I could have donne it faster if I wasn't so pricky about it. At the last "mesh" the dome looked nice, but not "band spanking new". However after having used the liquid abrasive - OH MY - it felt like I had performed a miracle! The darm thing could go back up onm the store shelf and pass for brand spanking new (well the dome itself anyway, maybe not the clack frame part). I felt so pleased with myself that I considered asking friends if I could polish their domes just for the pleasure of it... and I was showing of my clear restored port to my (non-uwphoto) friends until my roomie pointed out to me that she is not sure that they are quite as excited about the finer details of the "acryllic restoration project success" as I might think they are... Anyway. I recommend giving it a try even to those who hesitate about the probablilty of success as much as I did!!!

last week i just did the same thing with my brand new rig as for two years ago - when i swimed into a banister on a wreck and scratch the acrylic dome. I don't think it will affect the images noticeable, but it's really annoying.
What i don't understand is why the "sand paper method" involves grinding the entire dome
It looks scarry... Wouldn't it be enough to polish the scratched area ?